December 17, 2012
England

Forewind to submit separate applications to speed Dogger Bank

Karl-Erik Stromsta | Recharge | Published: Monday, December 17 2012 | www.rechargenews.com

Forewind, the consortium behind the world’s largest offshore wind development, has decided to submit two separate rounds of applications for the second tranche of its massive Dogger Bank project in order to speed the process along.

Forewind had already decided to break the first six projects within Dogger Bank – out of a total of eight to be developed, all 1.2GW – into two different “tranches”, named Creyke Beck and Teesside in reference to where the electricity will make landfall.

The Creyke Beck zone, closest to shore, will hold two projects and will likely be the first built.

The Teesside zone, in turn, will hold four individual projects. But Forewind now says it will in 2014 submit one application for the first two projects – A and B – and a second application for the final two Teesside projects approximately a year later.

Forewind – comprising Statoil, Statkraft, SSE and RWE – says Teesside A and B are sufficiently far ahead of the C and D projects to warrant the separate applications.

The C and D projects both require additional survey work, and the locations of their onshore grid connections have not yet been finalised, though like A and B they will likely be in the Teesside region, it says.

In contrast, all of those elements have been finalised for Teesside A and B – with those two projects to patch into the UK’s onshore grid via an existing substation near Middlesbrough.

Forewind says it will finalise the boundaries of Teesside C and D in 2013.

“Given the nearness of the onshore works for Dogger Bank Teesside A, B, C and D and the overlap in onshore survey areas, Forewind aims to reduce the burden on stakeholders by consulting on all four projects together as much as possible,” says Mark Legerton, Forewind’s head of engineering.

“However, two separate environmental statements will be produced and so two separate statutory consultations on draft documents will be required, approximately one year after the other,” he says.

Forewind has not indicated where the final two Dogger Bank projects might make landfall.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/12/17/forewind-to-submit-separate-applications-to-speed-dogger-bank/